Sarah Horton
Institut Catholique de Paris, Philosophie, Graduate Student
- Phenomenology, Continental Philosophy, Contemporary Continental Philosophy, Hermeneutic Phenomenology, Philosophy and Literature, French Literature, and 8 moreEmmanuel Levinas, Albert Camus, Charles Baudelaire, French Romanticism, Emile Zola, 19th Century French Literature, Amélie Nothomb, and 20th Century French Literatureedit
- Sarah Horton received the Ph.D. in philosophy from Boston College on May 23, 2021. Her book The Promise of Friendship... moreSarah Horton received the Ph.D. in philosophy from Boston College on May 23, 2021. Her book The Promise of Friendship: Fidelity within Finitude was published by SUNY Press (2023). She is currently doing a second Ph.D. at the Institut Catholique de Paris jointly with the Australian Catholic University, and her second dissertation is on alienation and self-knowledge in Maine de Biran.edit
The Promise of Friendship investigates what makes friendship possible and good for human beings. In dialogue with authors ranging from Aristotle and Montaigne to Proust, Levinas, and Derrida, Sarah Horton argues that friendship is suited... more
The Promise of Friendship investigates what makes friendship possible and good for human beings. In dialogue with authors ranging from Aristotle and Montaigne to Proust, Levinas, and Derrida, Sarah Horton argues that friendship is suited to our finitude—that is, to the limits within which human beings live—and proposes a novel understanding of friendship as translation: friends translate the world for each other so that each one experiences the world not as the other does but in light of the friend's always-unknowable experience. The very distance between friends that makes it impossible for them to know each other wholly also makes it possible for them to be transformed by friendship. Friendship, then, is possible and good for those who love precisely that they can never wholly know the friend. Friendship is a profound, mutual self-giving that highlights the irreplaceability of each person, fundamentally shapes the self, and is one of the greatest joys of human existence.
Research Interests: Ethics, Aristotle, Deconstruction, Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, and 15 moreContinental Philosophy, Émmanuel Lévinas, The Self, Jacques Derrida, Philosophy Of Friendship, Marcel Proust, Friendship, Montaigne, Aristotle's Ethics, Philosophy of Finitude, Translation, Alterity, Contemporary Continental Philosophy, Promises, and Emmanuel Falque
The essays in this volume all ask what it means for human beings to be embodied as desiring creatures—and perhaps still more piercingly, what it means for a philosopher to be embodied. In taking up this challenge via phenomenology,... more
The essays in this volume all ask what it means for human beings to be embodied as desiring creatures—and perhaps still more piercingly, what it means for a philosopher to be embodied. In taking up this challenge via phenomenology, psychoanalysis, hermeneutics, and the philosophy of literature, the volume questions the orthodoxies not only of Western metaphysics but even of the phenomenological tradition itself. We miss much that has philosophical import when we exclude the somatic aspects of human life, and it is therefore the philosopher’s duty now to rediscover the meaning inherent in desire, emotion, and passion—without letting the biases of any tradition determine in advance the meaning that reveals itself in embodied desire. Continental philosophers have already done much to challenge binary oppositions, and this volume sets out a new challenge: we must now also question the dichotomy between being at home and being alienated. Alterity is not simply something out there, separate from myself; rather, it penetrates me through and through, even in my corporeal experience. My body is both my own and other; I am other than myself and therefore other than my body. Additionally, this book is a conversation, not a presentation of a new orthodoxy. Thus, the hope is that these essays will open the way for further dialogue that will continue to radically rethink our understanding of embodied desire. Gathered together here are twelve essays that address these issues from deeply interrelated albeit unique perspectives from within the field.
Research Interests: Embodiment, Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, Philosophy of Literature, Continental Philosophy, and 15 moreContinental Philosophy of Religion (Philosophy), Edmund Husserl, Paul Ricoeur, Desire, Phenomenology of the body, Hermeneutic Phenomenology, Marcel Proust, Richard Kearney, Corporeality, Contemporary Continental Philosophy, Plato's Phaedrus, Philosophy of Desire, Emmanuel Falque, Plato's Charmides, and Carnal Hermeneutics
In light of Jacques Derrida's writings on death and mourning, it may seem that the Christian teaching that the dead will be raised is a betrayal of others, a failure to take up one's responsibility to testify to those who have died. In... more
In light of Jacques Derrida's writings on death and mourning, it may seem that the Christian teaching that the dead will be raised is a betrayal of others, a failure to take up one's responsibility to testify to those who have died. In conversation with Emmanuel Falque's work on finitude, Martin Heidegger's reading of 1 Thessalonians, and Søren Kierkegaard's reading of Abraham, I respond in two movements to this objection to faith that God will raise the dead. First, I propose that even for the Christian, the death of the other remains a loss, since the Christian must surrender the other to God. It is, however, this very surrender of the other to God that seems to be an abdication of responsibility. Second, therefore, I argue that faith in the resurrection decenters the self and challenges our understanding of responsibility even more than does Derrida's own analysis. Faith, I conclude, means giving up the desire to cling to one's own responsibility.
Research Interests: Christianity, Philosophy Of Religion, Deconstruction, Phenomenology, Continental Philosophy, and 15 moreContemporary French Philosophy, Martin Heidegger, 19th Century Philosophy, Jacques Derrida, Apostle Paul and the Pauline Letters, French philosophy, Soren Kierkegaard, 19th and 20th-century European philosophy, Contemporary Continental Philosophy, Resurrection, Søren Kierkegaard, Theology and philosophy, 20th century French philosophy, Christian Theology and Philosophy, and Emmanuel Falque
Proper attention to the theme of corporeality is crucial for understanding Derrida's analysis of Hegel in "The Pit and the Pyramid." This article argues that Derrida's essay compels us to face the impossibility of giving a wholly coherent... more
Proper attention to the theme of corporeality is crucial for understanding Derrida's analysis of Hegel in "The Pit and the Pyramid." This article argues that Derrida's essay compels us to face the impossibility of giving a wholly coherent account of embodiment. The Aufhebung supposedly unites the exteriority of the corporeal with interiority in a higher unity that cancels and preserves them both; Hegel's own text reveals, however, that meaning is primordially absent from the body that was thought to incarnate it. And it is this absence of ideal meaning that is originary: Differance conditions the body as it conditions speech, rendering the body other than itself such that it is not categorizable as flesh that is the self or as an object that is not the self. I am and am not my body because the dichotomy between interiority and exteriority breaks down even at the level of the body. Indeed, I am and am not my self; the embodied self is disrupted from the start, never self-contained. Thus embodiment always already testifies to the other.
Research Interests: Philosophy Of Language, Poststructuralism, Deconstruction, Embodiment, Continental Philosophy, and 14 moreGerman Idealism, Hegel, The Self, Writing, Jacques Derrida, G.W.F. Hegel, 19th-century German philosophy, French philosophy, Phenomenology of the Body (Philosophy), Derrida, Jacques Derrida & Deconstruction, Corporeality, Signs and Symbols, and 20th century French philosophy
While the traditional understanding of the look views it in terms of shame and oppression, I read Sartre's Notebooks for an Ethics with Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity to argue that the look always gives me the world and inaugurates my... more
While the traditional understanding of the look views it in terms of shame and oppression, I read Sartre's Notebooks for an Ethics with Beauvoir's Ethics of Ambiguity to argue that the look always gives me the world and inaugurates my freedom. Even the oppressor's look reveals that I am free and that my existence is conditioned by the existence of other free beings. Because the look gives me the world as the arena within which I act freely, it is a means of grace, and receiving it only in shame is bad faith. Although my existence remains unjustifiable and this grace cannot promise salvation, the look calls me out of shame to the pursuit of my and others' freedom, and this call is a gift.
Research Interests: Philosophy, Authenticity, Continental Philosophy, Continental Philosophy of Religion (Philosophy), Philosophy Of Freedom, and 15 moreSimone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Paul Sartre, French philosophy, Bad Faith, 20th Century Continental Philosophy, Sartre, Existentialism, Contemporary Continental Philosophy, Freedom, Sartre's existentialism, Grace, 20th century French philosophy, Existentialism In Philosophy, and Philosophy of Gift
In the midst of a pandemic, what does it mean to see the Other as Other and not as a carrier of the virus? I argue that in seeking a Levinasian response to the pandemic, we must be mindful of the implications of the mechanisms of... more
In the midst of a pandemic, what does it mean to see the Other as Other and not as a carrier of the virus? I argue that in seeking a Levinasian response to the pandemic, we must be mindful of the implications of the mechanisms of surveillance and control that, presented as ways to protect the Other, operate by controlling the Other and rendering our relation to the Other increasingly impersonal. Subjected to these mechanisms, the Other becomes a dangerous entity that must be controlled, and the state that deploys them comes increasingly to mediate the relation between self and Other. The more we rely on such mechanisms for protection, the easier it becomes to regard the Other not as one who summons me to an infinite responsibility but as a vector of disease. Despite all differences between Levinas's and Foucault's approaches, reading them in conversation shows that the control and surveillance of the population functions within a discourse that medicalizes and objectifies the Other in favor of the centralizing power that uses those technologies. In defiance of Levinas's warning against imposing a narrative on the Other's suffering, this discourse coopts that suffering as a justification for biopower.
Research Interests: Ethics, Continental Philosophy, Public Health Ethics, Émmanuel Lévinas, Michel Foucault, and 13 moreBiopower, Surveillance, Émmanuel Lévinas on ethics and the other, 20th Century Continental Philosophy, Biopower and Biopolitics, History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, Epidemiology and Public Health, Dispositif (Apparatus-Theory), 20th century French philosophy, Governmentality and Biopower, Emmanuel Levinas, Coronavirus COVID-19, and COVID-19 PANDEMIC
Through a study of nature and paternal power, this paper sheds light on the neglected theme of the relation between language and justice in Plato's Cratylus. The dialogue inquires after the correctness of names, and it turns out that no... more
Through a study of nature and paternal power, this paper sheds light on the neglected theme of the relation between language and justice in Plato's Cratylus. The dialogue inquires after the correctness of names, and it turns out that no lineage leads us back to a natural ground of names. Every lineage breaks; nature is always disrupted by the monstrous. It does not follow, however, that names are mere conventions without significance: on the contrary, naming is best understood as a prayer to and for the just. The Cratylus reveals the insufficiency of language not to lead us to despair but to call us to the humility and the hope in which we must pray for justice.
Research Interests: Philosophy Of Language, Ethics, Plato, Deconstruction, Continental Philosophy, and 13 moreJacques Derrida, Ancient Philosophy, Philosophy of Language (Humanities), Ancient Greek Philosophy, French philosophy, Jacques Derrida & Deconstruction, 20th Century Continental Philosophy, Plato's Dialogues, Post-structuralism (especially the work of Jacques Derrida), Cratylus, Plato's Cratylus, 20th century French philosophy, and History of Philosophy
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This essay examines the analysis of language in The Concept of Anxiety and argues that language ultimately reveals itself as both dangerous and salvific. The pseudonymous author, Vigilius Haufniensis, is suspicious of language, for it... more
This essay examines the analysis of language in The Concept of Anxiety and argues that language ultimately reveals itself as both dangerous and salvific. The pseudonymous author, Vigilius Haufniensis, is suspicious of language, for it divides the individual from herself and thereby makes possible the self-forgetfulness of objective chatter. Indeed, this warning (which commenters have tended to follow uncritically) is a legitimate one – yet it fails to grasp that by rendering the self other than itself, language constitutes the self. In other words, the individual’s very existence depends on language. Moreover, the attempt to establish oneself as absolutely self-identical is precisely sin. Language opens us to alterity, and for this reason the demonic cannot endure it and seeks to control it. Language is uncontrollable, however, to the point that no sign permits us to be certain that we have rightly distinguished good from evil, the salvific from the demonic – and salvation can come only if we renounce the attempt to establish distinctions that are beyond our power. By employing a pseudonymous figure who views language with suspicion, Kierkegaard shows that language is dangerous, even deadly, but also allows us to realize that language is the condition of possibility for salvation.
Research Interests: Philosophy Of Language, Philosophy Of Religion, Continental Philosophy, Continental Philosophy of Religion (Philosophy), 19th Century Philosophy, and 11 moreKierkegaard, The Theology of Søren Kierkegaard, 19th Century Continental Philosophy, Philosophy and Religion, Soren Kierkegaard, Alterity, Søren Kierkegaard, Philosophy of the Other, Christian Theology and Philosophy, The Concept of Anxiety, and Philosophy of Anxiety
Drawing on Sartre’s account of violence, I argue that not only is bad faith inevitable in practice, but a limited bad faith is necessary for authenticity. Although violating the freedom of others is bad faith, it is impossible to never... more
Drawing on Sartre’s account of violence, I argue that not only is bad faith inevitable in practice, but a limited bad faith is necessary for authenticity. Although violating the freedom of others is bad faith, it is impossible to never violate anyone’s freedom. Moreover, and more fundamentally, the ontological structure of the for-itself entails that the for-itself can only be authentic in the mode of not being authentic. Seeking to altogether avoid bad faith is bad faith, for it is an attempt to constitute oneself as essentially authentic, yet the for-itself has no preexisting essence. By recognizing one’s complete responsibility for choosing bad faith, however, one limits one’s bad faith. This limited bad faith is in fact necessary to authenticity, which is a project lived out in concrete situations and not a categorical moral law that forbids bad faith.
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In this paper, I argue that if we understand Levinas's Desire of the Other as gift, we can understand it as joyful – that is, as celebratory. After presenting Levinas's conception of Desire, I consider his claim, found in Otherwise than... more
In this paper, I argue that if we understand Levinas's Desire of the Other as gift, we can understand it as joyful – that is, as celebratory. After presenting Levinas's conception of Desire, I consider his claim, found in Otherwise than Being, that the self is a hostage to the Other, and I contend that, paradoxical as it may seem, being a hostage to the Other is actually liberating. Then, drawing on insights Richard Kearney offers in Reimagining the Sacred, I argue for understanding Desire as a gift that is the condition of possibility for joy. If I offer hospitality to the Other, I thereby accept the gift that makes joy possible, and this joy is not egoistic but is the proper response to the gift. Finally, I conclude that even if a pure gift is impossible, the Desire of the Other still offers me the promise of future joy and the possibility of imperfect rejoicing in the present. Even imperfect joy is better than any solitary enjoyment I might experience in the total absence of the Other.
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This article examines Kamel Daoud’s treatment of solidarity and the absurd in Meursault, contre-enquête and posits that the question of how to live in solidarity with others is central to the novel, although the word ‘solidarity’ never... more
This article examines Kamel Daoud’s treatment of solidarity and the absurd in Meursault, contre-enquête and posits that the question of how to live in solidarity with others is central to the novel, although the word ‘solidarity’ never appears in it. After recalling Camus’s discussion of the absurd in Le Mythe de Sisyphe and of solidarity in L’Homme révolté, the article examines the manner in which Haroun, Daoud’s narrator and the brother of the Arab Meursault killed in L’Étranger, reveals his own failures of solidarity. He justly criticizes Meursault for privileging his confrontation with the absurd over the death of the Arab he did not even name, but Haroun too has killed. Haroun has, however, a greater understanding of solidarity than his fellows: he at least recognizes that murder is significant. He thus joins Meursault as an unworthy prophet who proclaims the absurd while surrounded by people who flee from it—and proclaiming the absurd can be a gesture of solidarity when one speaks for others, as Haroun speaks for his brother Moussa. Daoud’s novel reminds us that there are no final answers telling us how to live in solidarity with others and that we must do so all the same.
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Translation (French to English) of Emmanuel Falque's Parcours d'embûches (text newly revised for the English translation).
Research Interests: Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, Continental Philosophy, Continental Philosophy of Religion (Philosophy), Continental Philosophy of Religion (Theology), and 13 moreContemporary French Philosophy, Hermeneutic Phenomenology, Continental Philosophy and Theology, Religious Experience, French philosophy, Finitude, Philosophy of Finitude, Phenomenology of Religion, Philosophy of Religion, Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Contemporary Continental Philosophy, continental philosophy/philosophy of religion/ phenomenology/Hermeneutics/religious experience, Christian Theology and Philosophy, and Emmanuel Falque
Translation (French to English) of "Philosophie et théologie : nouvelles frontières" by Emmanuel Falque.
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Translation (French to English) of Jean-Luc Marion's "La donation en son herméneutique," originally published (in French) as chapter II of Reprise du donné (Paris: PUF, 2016).
Research Interests: Hermeneutics, Phenomenology, Continental Philosophy, Contemporary French Philosophy, Intuition, and 13 moreEdmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Hermeneutic Phenomenology, Jean-Luc Marion, Interpretation, French phenomenology: Michel Henry, Jean-Luc Marion, Jean-Yves Lacoste and Emmanuel Levinas. Husserl and Heidegger., Contemporary Continental Philosophy, Myth of the Given, French Phenomenology, Givenness, Contemporary French Thought, and Jean-Luc Marion, French Phenomenology
Translation (French to English) of Emmanuel Falque's "Le fou désincarné." I also wrote a translator's note, placed at the conclusion of the article. Phenomenology must begin to acknowledge the organic, animal nature of the body instead... more
Translation (French to English) of Emmanuel Falque's "Le fou désincarné." I also wrote a translator's note, placed at the conclusion of the article.
Phenomenology must begin to acknowledge the organic, animal nature of the body instead of focusing only on the pure subjectivity of the flesh. Mediating between Descartes's extended body (a mere object that is entirely distinct from the self) and Husserl's lived body (the flesh that is the self), the spread body is the organic body that I have, that is not simply myself and yet is mine. This essay reveals the steep cost of phenomenology's neglect of the body, which produces a discarnation, or dissolution of the flesh itself. The "flesh without body" vanishes into transparency, exemplified by Descartes' "madmen" who lose all connection to their organic bodies, to the point of supposing that their bodies are glass. Because organicity is in fact proper to us, denying or rejecting its import can lead only to madness.
Phenomenology must begin to acknowledge the organic, animal nature of the body instead of focusing only on the pure subjectivity of the flesh. Mediating between Descartes's extended body (a mere object that is entirely distinct from the self) and Husserl's lived body (the flesh that is the self), the spread body is the organic body that I have, that is not simply myself and yet is mine. This essay reveals the steep cost of phenomenology's neglect of the body, which produces a discarnation, or dissolution of the flesh itself. The "flesh without body" vanishes into transparency, exemplified by Descartes' "madmen" who lose all connection to their organic bodies, to the point of supposing that their bodies are glass. Because organicity is in fact proper to us, denying or rejecting its import can lead only to madness.
Research Interests: Philosophy Of Religion, Embodiment, Phenomenology, Continental Philosophy, Continental Philosophy of Religion (Philosophy), and 14 moreContinental Philosophy of Religion (Theology), René Descartes, History Of Madness And Psychiatry, Phenomenology of the body, Flesh, Corporeality, Contemporary Continental Philosophy, Madness, Flesh and Body (in phenomenology), History of Madness, Cogito and the History of Madness, Lived Body, Emmanuel Falque, and Descartes Meditations
My contributions to this book are the translations (French to English) of the Preface to the American Edition, "Opening: Confrontation with Étienne Gilson," and "Afterword: Saint Thomas and the Entrance of God into Philosophy."
Research Interests: Medieval Philosophy, Philosophy Of Religion, Phenomenology, Continental Philosophy, Continental Philosophy of Religion (Philosophy), and 15 moreContinental Philosophy of Religion (Theology), Bonaventure, Christian Philosophy, Etienne Gilson, Contemporary Continental Philosophy, St Thomas Aquinas, Catholic Theology Philosphy, Continental Philosophy of Religion, Philosophy and Theology, Theology and philosophy, Church Fathers, Christian Theology and Philosophy, Catholic Philosophy, Saint Bonaventure, and Emmanuel Falque
Translation (French to English) of Pierre Drouot's "Reconnaissance et hospitalité – Retour sur le retour d’Ulysse." Read the document labelled "p3 ch 10 with edits" to avoid significant typos that found their way into the published... more
Translation (French to English) of Pierre Drouot's "Reconnaissance et hospitalité – Retour sur le retour d’Ulysse." Read the document labelled "p3 ch 10 with edits" to avoid significant typos that found their way into the published chapter (on p. 194 and p. 198); the primary document is the published chapter and thus has the correct pagination.
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Translation (French to English) of Jean-Luc Nancy's "L'Annoncée."
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Book review of Jeffrey Bloechl's Levinas on the Primacy of the Ethical: Philosophy as Prophecy (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2022).
Research Interests: Ethics, Philosophy Of Religion, Phenomenology, Continental Philosophy, Continental Philosophy of Religion (Philosophy), and 10 moreÉmmanuel Lévinas, The Other, Levinas, Continental Philosophy and Theology, French philosophy, Émmanuel Lévinas on ethics and the other, 20th century French philosophy, Emmanuel Levinas, Ethics (Levinas), and Jeffrey Bloechl
Book review of Johan de Jong, The Movement of Showing: Indirect Method, Critique, and Responsibility in Derrida, Hegel, and Heidegger (New York: SUNY Press, 2020).
Research Interests: Ethics, Deconstruction, Continental Philosophy, Hegel, Martin Heidegger, and 9 moreJacques Derrida, G.W.F. Hegel, Critique, 19th-century German philosophy, Jacques Derrida & Deconstruction, 20th-century German philosophy, Book Reviews, 19th and 20th-century European philosophy, and 20th century French philosophy
Book review of Daniel O’Shiel, Sartre and Magic: Being, Emotion, and Philosophy (London: Bloomsbury, 2019).
Research Interests: Ontology, Continental Philosophy, 20th Century Philosophy, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Paul Sartre, and 7 more20th Century Continental Philosophy, Existentialism, Sartre's existentialism, 20th century French philosophy, Sartre Emotion Affectivity Phenomenology, Being and Nothingness, and Sartre's Being and Nothingness
PJ Wehry interviews me on his Chasing Leviathan podcast about my forthcoming book The Promise of Friendship: Fidelity within Finitude (SUNY Press, November 2023).